


Putting on the mask of destiny

by Kaesteranya



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-07
Updated: 2010-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-18 23:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesteranya/pseuds/Kaesteranya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate universe; how Namine came to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Putting on the mask of destiny

**XIII. When happiness falls.**

She had tried to run when they had come for her. She had rather liked her existence as the ghost girl in white, flying wingless amidst stars and between worlds. Staying on the move kept her from asking the big questions, much less feeling sad about not knowing who she was.

  
Their black cloaks and deep hoods scared her. Seeing their faces didn’t help much either.

  


 **XII. Prison and palace and reverberation.**

  
“Your name shall be Naminé, I think, and this will be your room.”

  
Xemnas, the Number One, had a strong and unkind grip, but at least he did not handle her like an animal. He had led her by the hand and she had stumbled along, to the best of her abilities, up glass stairs that spiraled like a corkscrew into darkness. She had barely been given time to catch her breath and really look at her new home before he tugged her forward, heading towards the large white table at the center of the room. Nothing but a sketchbook and some colored pencils lay on top of it.

  
“Draw for us. That’s all we need you to do.”

  
Something about his smile chilled her to the core.

  


 **XI. If you weren’t real I would make you up.**

  
The dreams of the boy with a Key and a Mission were her first indicator of what she might have existed for. A small voice inside told her to show no one the sketches, however, and so she hid them from sight.

  


 **X. Every soldier in their army.**

  
Few things could be said about Saix, Number Seven: he did what he was told and he did it well, and was always the first to adhere to the Number One’s commands. The same could be said about Xigbar, the Second, Xaldin, the Third, and Lexaeus, the Fifth. They frightened her almost as much as Xemnas himself, and sometimes, even more than Xemnas did.

  
Vexen, the Fourth, always seemed to find an excuse to be alone with her. Whenever this happened, Naminé was subjected to a most uncomfortable period of clinical stares and odd questions on her physical functions and the abilities at her disposal. Zexion and Luxord were loners, much like Vexen. The Sixth and Tenth occupied themselves with their own worlds (be it books or card games) and only moved when the First instructed them to.

  
Demyx apparently talked to Naminé because no one liked talking to him, and sometimes, she understood where they were coming from. Larxene, the Twelfth, was cruel to the Ninth as much as she was to Naminé herself. She seemed to revel in making things difficult for her when the First was not looking.

  
The Eighth one, Axel, became in his roundabout way her first friend. He was a different person when he was on assignment, but that did not stop her from trusting him over the smooth-talking, charming Marluxia. The Eleventh was a gentleman through and through… Naminé did not doubt that. What made her avoid him was the fact that his words were empty.

  
The absence of a heart and the presence of a will, Naminé realized, was what made a nobody a most frightening creature. That, and their human semblance. She hoped that, if for anything else, she would not become what she saw in the Thirteen.

  
Roxas, she soon realized, was the one exception. Young and slight, he was the smallest and most fragile among them yet the most powerful beyond the First himself, and for that many of the other members took pleasure in bullying him. There was hatred in him, she knew, but it didn’t eat him alive. Beyond that he was cold, and kept to himself.

  
Sometimes she would catch him haunting the corridors of the castle, a small black monk moving between light and shadows. She tried to sketch him and each time she failed. She could never quite get the look of his eyes right.

 **IX. Absolutely necessary to be a gentleman.**

</b>

  
“Good day, little princess! Has our leader been spoiling you again?”

  
Larxene must have been bored and that was why she was in Naminé’s chamber, smirking at her from the windowsill. She was poised to say a million cruel little things now that they were alone together.

  
“Draw, draw, draw… that’s all you ever do. I honestly don’t know why he wants to keep you. He must be into little girls.”

  
She ducked her head and clutched her pencil, willing her hand to move even though it was shaking. Larxene leaned back and yawned, folding her hands behind her head.

  
“Did you suck him off? Did you let him fuck you? A skank like you must have done something to make him keep you. Tell me, little princess… what’s your secret?”

  
“Leave her alone, Larxene.”

  
Roxas was in the doorway; the Keyblades were in his hands. He was probably fresh from another sortie, harvesting more hearts from the Heartless.

  
“What do you want, brat?”

  
“I’m here to guard her for the day.” Roxas lifted his chin, appraising the Twelfth coolly. “Shouldn’t you be on patrol? I can go and inform the First that you apparently don’t like following orders.”

  
Larxene snarled. In another second the blonde stalked off, brushing shoulders with Roxas along the way. The boy only turned to watch her go before dismissing the Keyblades and pulling back his hood.

  
“Are you all right?”

  
“Y-yes!”

  
Roxas nodded and turned away.

  
“Ah… I thought you were sent to guard me.”

  
“I lied. It was the only way to get Larxene to leave.”

  
With that, the Thirteenth was gone.

 **VIII. All their confidence is mere presumption.**

  
“Roxas actually TALKED to you?”

  
Axel’s reaction surprised Naminé a little; she knew that the redhead was the only other member of the Organization who spoke to Roxas more than what was necessary, and she had always assumed they were close.

  
“Doesn’t he talk to you?”

  
“That’s like asking somebody if walls talk to them.”

  
Axel paced about as he was wont to do whenever he visited her in her room. He liked to look at her sketches, he claimed, but never said much about them.

  
“It’s good to see him talking to you though. He needs to loosen up.”

  
“…He’s lonely, I think.”

  
The Eighth stared at her for a full minute before laughing. Naminé could not remember seeing him that amused before.

  
“Roxas doesn’t know what ‘lonely’ means.”

  
“I think he does.”

  
Axel didn’t answer her.

 **VII. You and the piece are at the same point of unfolding.**

  
When Axel’s visits to her became less frequent, Naminé found that she didn’t mind. The person he now spent his time with was far more important and needed it a lot more than she did.

 **VI. A living work of art.**

  
The boy, she realized, was a real person, and through her sketches she sometimes felt she could reach him. When she let her mind wander she drew other things, but she knew they were all connected to him, one way or another.

  
He had brown hair rather than Roxas’ blond but blue eyes exactly like Roxas’ own, and he smiled in a way that Roxas never would.

 **V. We know but in part.**

</b>

  
“I wonder what it’s like to have a heart.”

  
Zexion paused, looking up from what he was reading. Naminé failed to notice; she was sketching the boy with the Key and his strange companions.

  
“Do you muse about it or do you question it?”

  
“Both, I think.”

  
Zexion lowered his gaze back to his book.

  
“Having a heart weights one down. Still, it’s better to have one.”

  
“Why?”

  
“Because it is only people who have hearts who know who they are.”

 **IV. Everything you can imagine is real.**

  
One morning she woke up with his name on her lips and suddenly she knew everything about him. It took her all the remaining hours of sunrise to hide away all of her sketches of him, she still did not know what possessed her to conceal them, but she could not imagine doing otherwise.

 **III. Fields of new grasses.**

  
Axel stole her away one day without warning: he didn’t answer any of her questions throughout their journey, and it took the sight of the quaint little town with its rosy skies and many railways fro the clock tower to silence her.

  
“This is Twilight Town. The boss wants to establish a base here someday.”

  
Naminé realized, with no small amount of surprise, that this was the first time she had ever seen a sunset. She had never stayed in a place long enough to notice the little details.

  
Roxas appeared soon afterward, and from the look no his face it was obvious that he had expected to see only Axel. The Eighth tugged the boy over and sat him and Naminé down on either side of him, and proceeded to talk about nothing at all.

  
Naminé would remember that day as the best she had ever had.

 **II. Indigo ink.**

  
The drawings of Sora became too numerous for her to seal away. She knew she should burn them, but they were far too precious for her to lose.

  


 **I. Every paradise is lost.**

  
It was Marluxia who discovered her secret — he had done so with a little help from Larxene, who appeared to despise her more than ever now that she was happy.

  
“You, my dear, are exactly what we need to take control.”

  
And so she drew for them, and with each pencil stroke she destroyed something precious to the boy she had never met.  



End file.
